Special Interest Groups

In addition to subcommittees EACH also has Special Interest Groups (SIGs), to generate a clear focus for members who wish to push forward and develop an important area related to communication and healthcare

A – Z

Jette Ammentorp

I am professor and research manager at the Health Services Research Unit at Lillebaelt Hospital and Institute of Regional Health Research, University of Southern Denmark. In my research I have focused on development and assessment of methods to improve the communication between health professionals and patients. In several efficacy and effectiveness studies me and my research group have investigated the impact of multidisciplinary communication skills courses, methods to evaluate the outcome of the training and methods to implement and embed it in clinical praxis. Intervention studies aimed to empower patients are another of my areas of interest.

Mette Breinholdt

I am a communication adviser and medical anthropologist. My special interest is in the meeting between patient and health system. I teach patient communication to medical doctors during their internship. I do courses and lectures on cultural competencies and stigmatizing in a medical setting. I am the author of two books for the Danish Board of Health: One on working in a multi-cultural setting and one on stigmatizing and preventive health work. A chapter for an educational book on emergency medicine with the ethnic minority patient as the subject is in press. Currently I am involved in a project regarding barriers amongst physicians towards patient involvement and shared decision making.

I am employed by the communication department at Central Denmark Region in Viborg.

Matilde Nisbeth Jensen

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University, Denmark, where I am a member of the Health Communication Project Group. My research interests include written health communication, computer-mediated health communication, health literacy, patient-patient communication, patient expertise and medical translation.

Merete Jorgensen

Assisting Teaching Professor. MD, GP, Senior Researcher.
I have been course instructor in the Family Medicine course at the University of Copenhagen for more than fifteen years. The students work 8 days in a GP clinic as doctors seeing patients on their own and video record the consultations. They get feedback on their consultations 20 hours (5×4 hours) in small groups during the five weeks course. At the final exam the student shows a video consultation with the student in the doctor`s role seeing a real patient and subsequently analyzes the communication as well as the clinical problem in the video. As they are all doing well at the final exam, and the exam also has a clinical case and a theoretical question, it would be difficult to measure the effect of different interventions. To measure the effect of different teaching methods we have therefore designed a questionnaire (DanSCORE), which the students fill in the very first and last day of the course after seeing the same test video. Outcome is the change in the questionnaire. The interventions have been access to online video cases, used in different ways. At the moment more than thousand students are included.

Louise Binow Kjær

I am a senior consultant at Centre for Health Sciences Education (CESU) where I work as both project manager, process consultant and director of the courses in professionalism at the medical master’s program at the University of Aarhus (AU). I have a special interest in communication skills training, where I also conducts training sessions.

The 30 ECTS course in professionalism runs through all six semesters of the medical master’s program and includes communication skills training and peer supervision. Currently I am involved in the management and consolidation of these courses – as well as the initiation of research projects about professionalism and patient centered communication. I am also part of the project management team in charge of creating an international semester at the medical master’s program.

Marianne Lau

I develop curriculums for communication training and teaching material, conduct train the trainee courses and have a position in the executive committee for the Danish Society for Communication in Health Care. Together with three colleagues I have written a Danish textbook on communication in health care. I am psychiatrist and in head of the Centre for Psychotherapy Competence and Research in the Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark. In my research I have focused on quality of life in cancer patients and for the last decades mostly on outcome in psychotherapy. In several randomized studies we have tested new treatment models against treatment as usual and in other studies we have evaluated the implementation of new psychotherapeutic treatments.

Jane Ege Møller

I am an assistant professor at Centre for Health Sciences Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. My background is in literature, communication and philosophy and I work with doctor-patient communication, health education practice and medical education, both through teaching and research. Since 2007 I have been the academic course manager for the post-graduate medical communication skills training in the Region of Mid-Jutland, Denmark. I am the manager of a development and research project on work place based communication skills training for hospital doctors. My ambition is to contribute to new understandings of how words work in the health area, and to create new ways in which humanistic perspectives on health, e.g. communication skills, narrativity and clinical ethics, play the most relevant and enriching part in health science education.

Annegrethe Nielsen

I have degrees in communication and education and work as a senior lecturer at the midwifery department at University College North Denmark, located in Aalborg. I teach communication to midwifery students and other groups of undergraduate healthcare professionals. I also teach postgraduates of a variety of healthcare professions including dentists, assistants and doctors along with nurses, therapists and midwives. I have been involved in staff development in the field of communication training through my position at UC North Denmark and through my affiliation with the teaching committee in EACH.

Gitte Thybo Pihl

I am a PhD student at University of Southern Denmark and affiliated to children’s department and the Health Services Research Unit at Lillebaelt Hospital. I have been conducting a mixed methods study about informational needs and decision making in the context of a multicenter trial testing for non-specific effects of the BCG vaccine. My focus has been on parental decisions about a vaccine – barriers, considerations and informational needs.
I am interested in shared decision making and risk communication in patient centered care, where the concept ‘lay epidemiology’ caught my interest.

Contact: gitte.thybo.pihl@rsyd.dk
Affiliation: Children’s department and the Health Services Research Unit at Lillebaelt Hospital; University of Southern Denmark.

Gitte Rasmussen

I am professor with special responsibilities in the area of interaction at the Institute of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark (SDU). I am director of the research center in Social Practices and Cognition and involved in teaching (how to describe) interactional skills within the study programs in Logopedics and Audiology at SDU. I have a special interest in research in and teaching methods and techniques used in interaction between professionals, including health care staff, and patients or clients with speech-, language-, hearing- or cognitive impairments.

Betina Ringby

I am an associate lecturer in physiotherapy in the Department of Physiotherapy, University College of Northern Denmark. I teach undergraduate Danish and international students as well as courses within the university for colleagues. I am a coordinator of an interdisciplinary communication staff team within the university.

My special interests are teaching methods e.g. audio-visual training in relation to motivational interviewing, patient centeredness and intercultural communication. Furthermore I teach how to communicate in a creative and engaging way in order to reach different target groups.

Birgitte Tørring

I am a lecture and an educational consultant in University College of Northern Denmark – working specific with postgraduate education and courses for Health Professionals. My professional background as a critical care nurse have given me a specific interest in training communication skills for health professionals in area of Critical Care Unit, Emergency & Anesthesia; and I have done a lot of communication training for works groups – working together in these clinical areas. I also have courses focusing on training communication in teams and accuracy in the communication (Communication and Patient safety). Another communication field I have been engaged in is my work as a trainer (supervisor) for groups of students, who are training supervisor skills. Right now my work time is shared between consulting and research. I am a doctoral student attached to Aalborg University (The Faculty of Medicine) and my Phd project is focusing on Intervening to improve relational coordination in the operating room and to investigate the impact on the safety culture – in a Danish University Hospital.

Maiken Wolderslund

I have worked with health services research since 2010 handing in my PhD dissertation this fall. I have a Master degree in Health Science, practical experience working as a nurse, and research competencies within both quantitative and qualitative methods. I have focused on development and evaluation of a health technology involving digital audio recording of outpatient consultations permitting patients to replay their consultation. I have a special interest in development of new communication aids, shared decision making and health literacy.